Extract, Extract Baby!

OK, I made myself giggle this morning, when it hit me that I had been completely wrong about a news story I saw on Comcast's home page yesterday.

Under the "Top Videos" section yesterday, there was a still of this mugshot:

The headline beneath it was "DUI for Vanilla Extract."

So help me, when I saw this yesterday, I thought, without any inner attempt at humor, that this woman had been a little known white rapper in the 1990's named "Vanilla Extract" (a la Vanilla Ice --see appropriately patriotically-garbed pic to your right -- who was a male white rapper in the early 1990's for you whippersnappers out there) who had just been busted for DUI.  Wow, I remarked to myself -- again with no thought at all of making a funny -- what a stupid name for a rapper.  No wonder I've never heard of her.  OK, who am I kidding -- it's a freaking GREAT rap name!                                                                                                               

Fortunately, the headline under the same still shot this morning on Comcast's home page is "Woman gets DUI for Vanilla."  A little more clear, wouldn't you say?  Turns out this poor lady actually made herself drunk on Coke and vanilla extract.  Yikes!  Do you know how much vanilla extract that is?  I'm surprised she didn't throw up before the cops arrived. Read her tale of weak will and the mighty lure of baking components here. 

Now, of course, anyone over the age of thirty is recalling to mind that episode of Family Ties where Alex P. Keaton's (played by Michael J. Fox) drunky Uncle Ned (played by Tom Hanks, forsooth!) steals a snifter of the evil bean juice in the middle of the night.  Watch the video -- if you dare -- but it gets pretty real:

Happy Fourth of July, y'all!  This is Vanilla Extract, signing out!  Peace, yo!